Monday, August 17, 2009

News according to the Ron Paul Forum

As regular readers here know, I've been looking at the official Ron Paul presidential campaign forum recently. Although set up in connection with the 2008 campaign, the loyal followers of Dr. Paul toil on at the Ron Paul Forums (aka "Liberty Forest"). The Liberty Forest is a funny place -- the news looks a bit different there. For the uninitiated, reading the forum is almost like learning to read a foreign language. For example:

The current financial crisis in the United States involves some of the very same Zionist criminals and entities that I pointed out in my recent chapter, "The Architecture of Terror: Mapping the Israeli Network Behind 9-11."

The collapse of their criminal scams on Wall Street could result in more information coming out about the Zionist gangsters behind 9-11.Such outrageous criminal scams cannot be kept hidden for long.

When you follow the link you find that this is a brief outline of an article from the Rense.com conspiracy madhouse. The piece's author is the anti-Semitic propagandist Christopher Bollyn, a writer for Willis Carto's Holocaust denial newspaper American Free Press. (The request for donations which Bollyn included in his original Rense article was cut from the Ron Paul Forum version.) When another forum member named Bruno mocks this forum member's focus on blaming Jews for the financial crisis, he's slapped down. "Bruno, grow up. He said Zionists."

Here's a headline reading "Madoff connected with zionist organisation Hadassah". Interesting slant. It seems to imply that his thefts helped Hadassah, whereas, in fact, Madoff stole $90 million of that charity's money. (Read here.) He was similarly "connected" to a number of other charities.

There's a report (here) which allegedly concerns aid to Gaza, but which begins

"The Jewish Zionist Supremacists are in complete control of the United States government."

That report on Gaza never actually mentions Gaza. It's first link goes to Benjamin Freedman's anti-Semitic classic "A Jewish Defector Warns America". The post continues with video of a Bollywood producer talking about Jewish domination of Hollywood and concludes with a list of Federal Reserve Board members who are Jewish. (Not that it matters, but three non-Jews on the list are described as Jewish: James B. Bullard, Thomas M. Hoenig and Richard W. Fisher. I guess fact-checking is not a high priority for these conspiracy buffs.)

Here's a thread concerning the Holocaust and the Vatican. It's distinguished from much of what I found in the Ron Paul Forum in that it includes both anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic hate speech. One Senior Member of the forum writes that the Vatican has been "bought off by Zionist elites". Another Senior Member agrees and protests that the Pope never mourns for non-Jews killed during World War II. A third Senior Member of the forum, rpfan2008, responds with this unusual view of the Holocaust:

"Brits/Jewish bankers incited Hitler to murder the Slavs by teaching him eugenics, Hitler well did that but his biggest mistake was that he included the Jews too in his list of 'inferiors'."

Here's a thread concerning CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. It seems that these Ron Paul supporters were displeased with Toobin's criticism of Ron Paul's performance in a debate. There are several posts concerning Toobin being a "Zionist". I actually wasn't aware of that. I believe that he's Jewish, but I've never heard him take a position pro or con on Zionism per se. In any event, the Ron Paul Forum says he is and that's why he hates Ron Paul. They suggest a remedy for his views:

"Toobin needs the taste slapped out of his mouth after that hate-filled tirade. I do believe that his comments require a correction, journalistly (sic) speaking."

I don't need to couch what I found at the Ron Paul Forum in obscure or distorted language; I can say it clearly. I found bigotry, conspiracy theories and gratuitous threats of violence.

UPDATE: August 18, 2009 4:30 pm

Check out the video embedded below. It's a report by the Iranian regime's English language propaganda station PressTV. It's posted here at one of the official websites of the Ron Paul campaign, the "Campaign for Liberty" (or "C4L" as it's sometimes called). Start at about 0:40 to hear Ron Paul refer to Gaza as an Israeli concentration camp. He goes on to say that the root cause of the conflict in the Middle East is American support for Israel. He concludes by saying that, while he could say that Israel "ripped off" the Palestinians, he would restrain himself from doing so in order to maintain non-interventionist neutrality.

Maybe this is why his campaign attracts those who are less discrete about their bias.

Most of Ron Paul's supporters are not like the Forum members I've been writing about. But you do have to ask yourself why Ron Paul and his campaign tolerate so much of this intolerable stuff in their forums. Are they so desperate for support that they'll take it wherever they can find it? Remember, Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul's political mentor, advised libertarians and paleoconservatives to make common cause with the extreme right. He found enough ideologically in common with David Duke to praise his candidacy in Louisiana.

I'm not a mind-reader, so I don't know Ron Paul's motives. But his campaign is filled with enough of this sort of stuff to raise questions about his judgment. What does it say about him that he tolerates so much bigotry in his forums? Is it cynicism? Neglegence?

Whatever the motivation, it's irresponsible for a political leader to allow his websites to be used in this manner. He needs to address this.

>Most of Ron Paul's supporters are not like the Forum members I've been writing about.<I don't know about that Adam.I've read a lot of posts and writings by supporters of Ron Paul in the last year and I gotta say that in almost every case there is a "just below the surface" tone of hate.Even those who speak out against the bigotry don't do it by arguing against it.What they seem to object to is how it's being said. Very rarely do they repudiate it for themselves, but do so only in defense of "Dr. Paul".

This post has received far more nuisance comments than any other on this blog. Every day someone tries to post at least one, sometimes two, junk comments. You don't see them because comments on this blog are moderated, but I thought you'd be interested to hear how persistent this particular spammer is. Every day, month after month, the comments appear in my email and I reject them. Yet they continue.

The sheer futility and pointlessness of this spamming merits some attention, although I'm damned if I can explain it. There's someone out there with far too much time on their hands.